Executive Summary: How Europe and America Should Confront IslamicExtremism

Through immigration and demographic changes, Europe's Muslim
population has grown exponen­tially in recent years. Because of
this, several experts and commentators have predicted doomsday
sce­narios for Europe, forecasting majority Muslim
pop­ulations in major European cities within a decade. Mark
Steyn, author of America Alone: The End of the World As We Know
It, envisages the Islamization of Europe by the end of the 21st
century.

The disaffection of significant segments of the Muslim
population in Europe has coincided with a growth in terrorist
activity. In a November 2006 speech, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller,
former Director General of the Security Service (MI5), announced
that British security services had iden­tified over 1,600
individuals actively engaged in plotting or facilitating terrorist
acts at home and abroad involving some 200 British-based terrorist
networks. The foiled attacks by Islamic terrorist cells in Germany
and Denmark stand as ominous signs of the level of threat facing
Europe.

However, this is not just a European problem. Knowing that
Europe is a logistical and fundrais­ing base for both domestic
and international ter­rorist plots, including the September 11
attacks, both the United States and Europe need to con­front
al-Qaeda and other extremist groups head-on. The atrocities
committed by Islamic terrorists in Washington, New York, Madrid,
and London were attacks on the principles of freedom and
lib­erty that define Western civilization. Al-Qaeda and its
allies have targeted innocent civilians in Europe, America, Africa,
the Middle East, the Far East, and Central Asia and will continue
to advance their borderless war on Western values and attempt to
break the West's will to fight an asymmetric "long war."

A united transatlantic response and commitment to what is
currently an indeterminable timetable for victory is not only
necessary, but essential if Europe and America are to confront the
domestic and glo­bal network of extremists intent on
annihilating the West and its allies.

What the U.S. and Europe Should Do. The United States and
its European allies should take a number of steps to confront
Islamic extremism. Specifically:

The EU needs to be more receptive to transat­lantic
information sharing and agree to an umbrella agreement
accepting U.S. data privacy standards as adequate to permit the
transfer of information.

The United States, United Kingdom, and European Union should
coordinate their lists of designated foreign terrorist
organizations as closely as possible. Congress should
con­tinue its steady pressure on the European Union, and
President Bush should use the recent détente in
French-American relations to press for Hezbollah's inclusion on the
EU's official list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Prime Minister Brown should carefully assess which EU
policies are in the British interest and sign on only to those
that demonstrably add value. Britain should withdraw from the
Euro­pean Convention on Human Rights and formu­late
alternate arrangements that are specifically commensurate with
British interests. Britain should also oppose proposals in the
forthcoming EU Reform Treaty that would supranationalize key areas
of police and judicial policy.

Joint EU counterterrorist activities should be pursued
through a mutual recognition approach rather than a supranational
one.

Britainshould vigorously enforce exclusion and
deportation from the U.K. for individuals who engage in
unacceptable behaviors and should continue to prosecute
high-profile Islamists who threaten public order.

Polandand the Czech Republic should con­tinue to
pursue negotiations with the United States on missile
defense.

The U.S. Congress and the Administration should carefully
implement the changes in the Visa Waiver Program with
flexibility and bi­lateral alliance-building in mind. The
system that is finally introduced should minimize travelers'
inconvenience and recognize frequent trusted travelers.

Congress should support Poland's entry into the Visa Waiver
Program.

Conclusion. Peter Wehner, former director of the White
House Office of Strategic Initiatives, recently commented that it
has fallen to the West, particularly the United States, to deal
with Islamic extremism. European directives, regulations, and
communiqués will not win the war on terrorism. The EU has a
specific role in coordinating intergov­ernmental action and
even cooperating on a multi­lateral basis with third parties,
but it should not be seen as a replacement for the valuable
relationships and bilateral alliances that the United States has
carefully crafted over decades.

When Irish republican terrorists attempted to assassinate
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with a bomb at the
Conservative Party Conference in 1984, she famously held her ground
and declared that terrorism would never destroy democracy. On 9/11,
Islamic terrorists killed nearly 3,000 people, including 67 British
citizens, and America and Britain were called upon to react with
equal resolve and vigor. Just as Prime Minister Thatcher stood firm
in 1984, and just as she and President Ronald Reagan faced down the
Soviet Union and won the Cold War, American and British leadership
will once again be required to stand up to a hostile and motivated
enemy and defeat the enemies of freedom and liberty.

Sally McNamara is Senior
Policy Analyst in European Affairs in the Margaret Thatcher Center
for Freedom, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis
Institute for International Studies, at The Heri­tage
Foundation. The author is grateful to James Dean, Deputy Director
of Government Relations, Foreign and Defense Policy, at the
Heritage Foundation for his advice on reform of the Visa Waiver
Program. Erin Magee, an intern in the Davis Institute, and Maria
Ver­banac, Administrative Assistant in the Thatcher Center,
assisted in preparing this paper.